The Great Games
by Tavoriel
Summary: BBC Sherlock characters, Hunger Games book 1 scenario, YEP
1. Chapter 1

I'm not thinking straight, there's too much going on, and I'm pretty sure I'm going to die. We're all standing in a ring in front of a giant metal contraption that's supposed to represent a cornucopia, overflowing with gear and supplies, and in seconds they're going to set us free and watch us try to kill each other. The sponsor, the one who's supposed to be looking out for me, for Molly and me, said to run straight to the woods and try to survive, said that we don't have a chance, otherwise. Of course we don't have a chance, we're healers. Or, connected to the medical profession, at any rate. And our sponsor doesn't know it, but before the games, Molly and I swore to each other that we wouldn't kill anyone for winning, only for self-defense, if it came to that. Which, if we're going to die anyway, is a nice enough sentiment to die with.

And… and Molly's trying to get my attention, hello, what's that Molly?

Oh, him. She's pointing to Sherlock. His platform came up quite close to mine, with only one tribute between us. He's sitting there, with his eyes closed. I realize he's not going to try to survive, he's just going to sit quietly, waiting for someone to kill him, and it's really saddening; I look over at Molly, and she can see from my face I've noticed… but Molly, what do you want me to do?

Sherlock became a little popular before the games, and not in a good way. He's viewed this as a death sentence plain and simple from the start, and he's been ignoring every effort the Capitol's put out to get him to participate in anything that adds any semblance of public entertainment to it. He was completely silent for his whole interview, just glaring out at the audience with a look of absolute venom. When they came to take him away, the host told him, "May the odds ever be in your favor," and he spat out, "They're NOT."

Molly does something strange. She moves her hands, like she's… picking… something… up… she's nodding towards the woods, the direction where we've already decided, with looks and nods, we're going to run…. Molly, do you want us to pick up Sherlock and carry him into the woods? I point to her, then to me, then to Sherlock, with a pointed look.

She nods, then shakes her head and points to me.

Oh, alright, I'm supposed to pick up Sherlock and carry him into the woods. I'm closer.

I give her a blank look.

She looks at me like she's begging, and that's never been our relationship, and it makes me uncomfortable. I remember something she said, before they took us out here, after she scored abominably on her presentation of skills to the judges: "John, if they wanted to test my skills, they would have sent me into an arena where we can help each other. Not this."

And another thing she said, "John, when we die, no one will know who we were. We'll just be some kids."

I start to understand.

We really are going to die.

And Molly's still trying to do meaningful things with her life, to the last.

Maybe it doesn't matter whether we try to save the boy who's given up, in the long run, but maybe it's still worth doing.

Okay, Molly. I nod.

It's a bad idea, but then, so is this arena. If she wants this, I'm not going to be the one to take it away from her.

I'll get Sherlock.

The countdown ends, and everyone is running, towards the center, away from the center, towards the running tributes, away from the running tributes – everywhere. I'm running too. I can see Molly heading for the woods. Now I've reached Sherlock, now I've got him slung awkwardly over one shoulder, now I'm heading after Molly. He's taller than me – a lot of people are – but he's very light, and I realize he hasn't been stuffing himself with Capitol food like the rest of us. Of course. Has he eaten anything at all, voluntarily, since they called his name for the games, I wonder?

He barely reacted when he felt me grab him, and I realize now that he was expecting and accepting that I should kill him. But being picked up wasn't part of his plan, and he's resisting now, demanding to know what I'm doing, demanding to be put down, telling me indignantly that I have no reason whatsoever to carry him here or there, the point is to kill people, as if I'd made a mistake for not acting in accordance with his preconceived ideas of how things are going to go.

"Quiet, we'll talk when we get to the woods," I tell him. I'm sure a lot of people are watching me, though how many of those are tributes who want to kill me, and how many of those are Panem residents being entertained, I have no idea. What I do know is that his protests encourage more notice from both. But for all his silence before the games, I can't get him to shut up now.

"I'm not going to be quiet, you're supposed to kill me quickly and more or less humanely, of course I'm not going to cooperate if your sick mind comes up with torture instead, are you bloody stupid, the others want to kill you too, you should wait to get settled in, get a sense of the place, before you pick up victims to drag into the woods!"

"I said stop talking!" I snap. "I'm not going to torture you, we're going to keep you alive, Molly and me, because we don't think it's fair to just let you give up like that, now hold still, you're not going anywhere, not when you haven't been eating and I have."

He'd started to protest again, but apparently what I said about his going places or not must have struck him as a challenge, because he tells me yes, he is, and rolls sideways off my shoulder.

But suddenly Molly's there, already picking up his feet, yelling, "John, RUN," and now I've got his shoulders, and we somehow get him into the woods, over lots of thrashing and berating.

I am AMAZED that nobody got at us while we were fumbling. I wasn't paying attention to the others, but all this time I was expecting to be knifed or shot or strangled or…dead. Being alive right now is more luck than I ever would have dared hope for. I suppose the odds really must have been in our favor?

But when I glance back, briefly and only once, from the slightly relative safety of the trees, I'm not so sure it was luck. A lot of the tributes are dead, a disturbing number, more than any of our sponsors would have expected (how many must have said, "Your best chance is to run in for supplies"?). Standing by the cornucopia, alive, is a small group of kids, maybe four or five – Jim, Irene, and the frightening, too-tall kid from District 1 among them.

They're just standing there, watching Molly and me go, and I could almost swear Jim is smiling.

But with all the blood on his face, it's hard to tell.


	2. Chapter 2

Neither Molly nor I like to argue, but we're arguing now. Neither of us are in a good mood; we're tired, hungry, and thirstier than I can ever remember being. After we were clear enough of the cornucopia to feel a little safer, we got Sherlock walking on his own, and we've been walking along in silence for all of yesterday and a lot of today. Now we've finally stopped to figure out eating and drinking. We can't start a fire at night because of how obvious the glow would be, so if we're going to do something, it's got to be now, when we have all of our options available. The trouble is, we don't really know what to do. We tried to learn survival skills during our training, but our sponsor won her Hunger Games by combat, and wasn't much help. We know we have to boil the water out here before we drink it, but we're having trouble deciding what to boil it IN. For all we were worried about being killed by one of the tributes, it seems like nature's turning out to be just as deadly.

"Are you really trying to stay alive," Sherlock accuses, propped up against a tree and doing absolutely nothing. He never seemed to have a hard time keeping up with us, walking, but he must be more exhausted than either Molly or me, considering how little he's eaten in the last few weeks.

"Shut up," I say automatically, to which Molly responds, "John, please."

"Oh," Sherlock says, studying Molly, really looking at her for the first time. He studies, then drops his gaze. "I see."

"What?" Molly wants to know.

"John would be a better match for you," he says, closing his eyes and relaxing against the tree. "Overlooking the obvious fact that one, if not both of you has to die."

"I'm sorry?" Molly says, her face crinkling in surprise and offense.

"It was your idea to take me with you, wasn't it," Sherlock says. "John wouldn't have done it on his own, he gets walked on by people enough as it is, he wouldn't want anything to do with someone like me unless someone else pressured him into it. There's irony in there somewhere, now that I think of it."

"I'm SORRY?" I say.

"I am right, though? Well, I'm thirsty, and your bickering is starting to get boring. Thirsty. I'm very thirsty. F*ck I'm thirsty. F*ck, f*ck, f*ck I'm so thirsty. Couldn't be thirstier if I were on national f*cking television in front of all of f*cking Panem. I know other words too. Sh*t, I could be at this all bloody day."

He scowls at the silver parachute that soon floats down to his feet, as we stare, open-mouthed. It's a water bottle, and selfish survival instinct tells me to dive for it and fend the others off. I only stare.

"This isn't what I f*cking wanted," Sherlock says coldly, to the sky. "What, I'm supposed to drink this now and die of thirst a few days later? Send me whatever _they_ f*cking wanted. Teach a man to fish, don't slap him in the f*cking face with one."

And the supplies come. The small iron pot almost hits my head, I barely move away in time, I'm so shocked.

"They could have killed you for that," I tell Sherlock. I am, ashamedly, deeply impressed. That was honestly one of the most amazing displays I've ever seen in my life, but something won't let me give him the pleasure of knowing that, just now. "They could have killed all of us!"

"Not with eight tributes left and perfectly poised to wage a delightfully interesting battle of teams," he says, closing his eyes again. "No one wants to see that Jim character realize he's got no opposition, slaughter his teammates, and walk off with a trophy, barely two days in. No, they'll want this team alive, and I'm so close to you both that they can't kill me very easily without taking us all out. Congratulations, you've done precisely what I wanted to avoid – you've made my final hours into entertainment."

"There's just eight of us left?" Molly says.

"I counted the cannons," Sherlock says. "Isn't that what you do?"

"There were a lot," I say doubtfully. I'd tried to count too but found it hard to keep track.

"I know there were a lot," Sherlock says. "I counted."

He bends over to pick up the water bottle they sent him first, with fresh, clear water ready to drink.

"Let me know when you've got food," he says, opening it, downing half of it, and settling in against the tree, holding the water bottle loosely, like he knows we're not going to try to take it. "I need to think."

And he checks out of the conversation.

It's hard to tell if he's asleep or only…far away, mentally. Molly and I open up our impossible new supplies and get to work purifying stream water.

"What did we just do," I whisper, nodding over at Sherlock.

"I don't know," Molly says, looking at the ground. "Please, John. Let him stay."

"He is… handy, I suppose," I admit, darkly.

"John, please," Molly whispers. "He needs us."

"Oh, yeah, he really needed our help, just now, we were so useful to him, we helped him get exactly what he wanted from his sponsor!"

"John," Molly says.

I look at her, then at the ground. We're committed to keeping things professional between us, to make any future hard choices easier, but already she's become something of a second sister to me, and I don't want to see her undone by the likes of Sherlock.

"I don't trust him," I tell her. "Don't get too close. Don't get hurt."

She looks at the ground. Her lower lip is trembling.

"You don't know me," she says. "Neither of you do."

I can't think of what to say to that, but it feels like I've already lost.


	3. Chapter 3

"Six, we've got food," Molly says kindly, squatting down near Sherlock.

"Six? What's six?" he says, opening his eyes and showing no sign of surprise or waking up; Molly jumps a little.

"Your… your district," she says, puzzled.

"Is it," Sherlock says. "Well. A lovely number. " He opens his eyes and finds our campfire, our meager stew. "That looks excellent."

"Wait… you don't know what district you're from?" I say incredulously.

"Not important," Sherlock says, finishing off his water and squat-crawling over to the campfire. "Don't berate yourself for not finding any meat, plants _are_ easier to catch."

He just said something kind to us for the sole purpose of showing off that he knows what we made? I open my mouth to address that, but the staggering strangeness of the first thing he said comes back to me, and I have to continue that line of thought first.

"Of course it's important," I say. "Districts define culture, livelihood…"

"Which is all controlled by the Capitol," Sherlock says. "Any culture you have is the one they assigned you, plus some arbitrary traditions and mannerisms people came up with to pretend it's not like that, people always need something to be proud of. In any case, even if any of that mattered, the arbitrary numbers they gave the districts certainly wouldn't. Would you go to bed hungry less often if the district you lived in was called forty-eight? I have no quarrel with the number, you can call me forty-eight just as easily as six, if you ever want to call me by a number."

"It's fine," Molly says. She sounds just a little exasperated, which makes me pleased.

"And so is this stew," he says, quickly picking out a hot piece of greenery from the pot and eating it.

"This has got to stop," I say warningly. "You're not to boss us around."

"I'm not bossing," he says, whisking another tidbit out of the scalding water and into his mouth.

"Well, stop being so…"

"Myself?" He looks at me. Up until now, he's looked bored, disdainful, grouchy, and a lot of other things, but now his look is fierce, challenging. I've gone somewhere he doesn't like people going.

I look away.

"Leave some for us?"

"Oh, I'm not going to starve, I'm not worried about that," he says warningly, drawing away from the soup pot, a smile curling up his near emaciated face. "You shouldn't worry either. This is the Hunger Games. They're going to kill me with tributes. If there's no blood, the audience goes home. And they've had seventy-three years of practice. They know what they're doing, and I'm just where they want me. They'll give me what I need to keep me there."

We end up giving him the whole small pot, and go off looking for more edible plants, to make more for ourselves.

"He scares me, John," Molly says, once we're out of earshot.

"What," I say, "that he's going to get himself killed? That he's going to kill us?"

Molly bites her lip. "Both," she admits.

As we're heading back, we hear our guest talking. I suddenly remember what he was just saying about being too close to us for the Gamemakers to kill separately… what were we thinking, leaving him alone? Alarmed, we hurry back all the faster, only to find him sitting in front of a tree, in no danger whatsoever, pulling his nose forward with his thumb and forefinger, informing a knot in the wood, "This is you, Mycroft. This is what you look like."

"What are you doing?" I finally settle on.

"Found a camera," he says, without looking up. He puts his other hand on his head, pushing his floppy brown hair back along it. "This is you exactly, Mycroft. Don't bother to deny it."

"Dare I ask who or what this Mycroft is?" I ask.

"Brother," he says shortly, but without anger. He's not concerned with us very much at the moment. "You can't have any of my things, I forgot to say before I left. Burn it all, it shall go to nobody."

Molly nudges my hand with hers, and when I look at her, she's looking at the ground.

"We'll leave you to it," I say, with something approaching kindness, and Molly leads me to go prepare our dinner.

"You've scared them off, Mycroft," Sherlock informs the tree. "I'm disappointed. Very disappointed. Shows what a rotten lout _you _are."


	4. Chapter 4

Whenever Molly and I gather food, the topic of the day always seems to be Sherlock. What did we talk about before there was Sherlock? It's hard to remember. Today, the topic is _especially_ Sherlock, but we're not actually doing a lot of talking. We have no idea what to say, and it's easier to marinate in companionable confusion.

When we came back last evening with dinner, we found him sitting on the forest floor with his sleeve rolled up, exposing a large, freely-bleeding cut on his forearm. We must have reacted more strongly than he was anticipating; the, hm, enthusiasm of our response startled him, and prompted a defensive outburst about how he's perfectly fine, he wasn't attacked, he's using the blood to practice writing with his other hand, it's something he'd always meant to do but never got around to, and there's finally time for it now. Then he tried to show us his progress, scrawled neatly on birch bark with an old feather, and attempted to segue into a discussion of his biggest challenges and best successes, with the project.

Between the three of us, we got ahold of a paltry first aid kit from the sponsors. Between the two of us, Molly and me, we got Sherlock's arm cleaned off and bound up. Between the one of him, he doesn't carry any sharp objects on him anymore that we know about, and he's promised never to do such a thing again, though what that means is, I suppose, ultimately up to him.

Molly shows me a particularly large root she's found, and I nod gravely in approval.

"Think this is enough?" she asks, meaning the roots we've gathered, blessedly shifting the "conversation" somewhat from the Sherlock-related to the everyday.

"Just a few more," I say. It's our first time leaving Sherlock alone since yesterday's incident (he still refuses to gather food with us, claiming he needs privacy in the same way "people like you" need water), and we're both in a hurry to get back. "Obviously he knows we're rushing, but I don't want to give him much of an opening to point it out and complain about it. Let's pull up that one and that one and that one, and then we'll be good."

"We should come back to this patch," Molly says.

"Yes," I say.

We've already somewhat depleted the food supplies immediately surrounding our camp, and it really is a good thing we found so much more, here. It's been almost five days since the start of the Hunger Games, and we have a "home" campsite now. Sherlock found it for us. After his thinking spree preceding our strange first meal together, he must have come to some conclusion, for he surprised us by taking charge and leading us at a cruelly fast pace through the woods, searching for… something. His head was in the sky for practically the whole time, looking at how the land sloped, looking up trees; even climbing trees, on some occasions. And then, suddenly, whatever he was looking for, he found it here. There's a genuine cliff near our campsite, a small one; after he was satisfied that we could all climb up and down relatively easily, and after he'd critically studied the view from the top of it, it was decided, just like that. "We'll camp here," he'd told us. And so we had. And we're still here, and he's given us no indication of what our next move will be, and he refuses to discuss it. Molly and I certainly don't have any better ideas, so we're following along as patiently as we can. We're finding ourselves busy enough, staying hidden, staying fed. I would have expected Sherlock to handle the wait better, it being part of his plan, but the inactivity is eating him away, getting to him in really bad ways. Blood-on-birchbark bad ways.

We return from gathering to find him hanging upside-down from a large, low tree branch, by his knees. His eyes are closed. His hand reaches out, pats the ground, finds something, puts it in his mouth. Molly points, and I see the small pile of nuts and berries.

"You're going to make us ask?" I say, more coldly than I meant to.

"I heard once you can swallow when you're upside-down," he says, harshly serene. "Always meant to try it. Makes things a little more interesting, in this orientation, also."

"Sherlock, this isn't something you're supposed to be using our emergency food for," Molly chides, walking towards him.

"I'm not," he says, about the same time as Molly screams.

She has him out of the tree in seconds, and by the time I get there, she's got him in her lap, eyes glued to him, holding a slimy little deposit of spit and half-chewed nuts, her hand still close to his face from getting it.

"Did you eat, any of the berries," she breathes.

"No," he says, confused and rather shaken; for once, he's unable to find the words to add needless intelligence to a simple response. It's the most genuine-looking I've ever seen him. "I just..."

"Those berries you found are nightlock berries," she tells him, starting to calm down but still holding him protectively - I have so much respect for her right now. She swallows. "They're poisonous."

"Don't be daft," he says automatically, and my breath hisses in sharply, incredulously, automatically. "I'd already thought of it. You think our lovely viewers want to see starving little kids drop dead because they picked the wrong bush to snack on? That's not entertainment, that's boring. This place is practically made of entertainment; we can eat anything we want, I promise."

"SHERLOCK," I shout, and he and Molly jump, look at me.

"This isn't a game," I say, loudly, but when I realize he's actually listening, it catches me off guard; I mellow a bit - "This isn't a game," I say again, in a quieter voice. "It is, but it isn't. Not everyone is like you, Sherlock. People don't always plan things to be clever. People don't always plan. Sometimes people just want to kill you. Oh, they care about being entertained, but they don't CARE. Not THAT much. Not like you do. So Sherlock. Please. Check with us before you trust your life our any of ours to one of your... deductions."

He's looking at my shoes by the time I've finished. He looks very small. That huge presence that seems to follow him everywhere is buried deep inside of him now.

"I should have thought of it," he says, finally, subdued. "Of course they'd put poisonous food here, they'll want to leave open the possibility that someone will recognize it for what it is, use it as an opportunity for discrete elimination of teammates – look everyone,_ Joey's gone and slipped a little something into that stick soup Billy's eating for breakfast!_ A lovely little drama. Obvious. I should have thought of it. Lack of sleep, maybe. Or, no chance to refresh mental energy. I'll have to check especially hard for other cracks now."

If he says anything else, I'm not aware because I'm over there, holding his shoulders, my face inches from his, "MOLLY SAVED YOUR LIFE."

He's definitely startled, almost frightened.

"_Stop worrying about being RIGHT_," I say, I don't know what to do with him, I'm so angry. "_Do you have ANYTHING. To say to Molly_."

None of us are talking, and I realize I'm still holding his shoulders as tightly as I can. I let him go, but I don't drop eye contact.

Finally, he does.

Then, he seems to have decided something. He picks himself up, brushes himself off, walks a ways away, hesitates. Then he says, in a low voice that's just heartbreaking, "No one can save my life." And then he keeps going, off into the woods, humming a sad-sounding tune I've never heard before.

We don't see him again for hours, but by the time he comes back, all the birds have picked it up, and the wood echoes with it.

I don't drift off to sleep very soon at all that night. On top of all of my other concerns, I'm burdened with the sinking realization that Molly and I are alone in the woods with Sherlock Holmes, and we've just taught him to identify one of the deadliest poisons known to man.

Another thought comes to mind, a really really dark one, something that relates to what Sherlock was just saying about the berries and why the gamemakers would put them there, but I push it aside before it can mature. That is NOT how I operate. WHETHER OR NOT it would be a kindness, in some sense. I do wonder if it would have been better to leave him at his platform, at the start of the games, though.

The next evening, Molly and I are back at the patch of roots, gathering. Discussing our usual subject. It turns out, I hadn't been paying attention, and Molly thought I had; she fills me in now. When Sherlock was trying out his writing experiment, it was names he'd been practicing with. Our names. _Sherlock Holmes, John Watson, Molly Hooper. _Over and over again, crimson on crinkled white.

"Do you think he's hoping to be friends?" Molly wants to know.

And I honestly have no idea. No idea at all.


	5. Chapter 5

Before I was part of the Hunger Games, I watched them on television just like everybody else. I know that, when things get dull, the Gamemakers liven things up. It's been nearly a week since we started, and all we've done so far is sit in the woods. I'm starting to worry about a surprise... "event." Molly's worried too. We discussed it some over our evening foragings. I think it's time to come to Sherlock about this, see what he thinks, coax out at least a few of those lofty thoughts of his. As we return, I am determined.

Sherlock isn't at the campsite.

My immediate first thought is that he's run off for good, followed immediately by a second thought that says no, he wouldn't do that, he's... our friend? He depends on us for food, certainly. We've turned into a disturbingly close approximation of a nuclear family, with Molly the mother, I the father, and he the small child.

I turn to Molly, when there's Sherlock's voice right behind me, urgent, "John!"

Molly and I shriek and turn around to see... what can only be Sherlock, a mass of dirt and leaves in human form.

"Sherlock, what have you done, you're filthy," Molly says disapprovingly, in the mothering tone she's developed special, just for him.

"Practicing camouflage," he says dismissively. "John!"

"What? What is it?" I ask. After living with him for a few days, I'm not as put off by his getup as I think a normal person ought to be, and that worries me.

"I need a second ear," he says, then off he goes talking, like his life depends on how many words he can fit into a minute: "Jim's interview wasn't just an interview, it was an advertisement to the criminal associations of Panem. His wardrobe was business formal, to appear adult-like and powerful, of course, but more importantly, he laid out what the viewers' expectations for his performance should be, made "promises" that he intends to deliver on, said he would win and said some things about how, dropped hints about his plans, why would he do that, what does he have to gain, could be just to make himself as interesting as possible, to make sure the sponsors find him interesting, want him alive, but then you can't ignore that he hinted at having been something of a name in the criminal activities of his district, viewers don't need to know that, that detracts from the likelihood of help from sponsors, can't have the capitol publically warming up to a likely criminal, it was a dangerous move, but absolutely logical if he wants to be recruited by crime, more importantly still, we also can't ignore the fact that he volunteered for the games_, _with no obvious motive, come on, nobody from Twelve volunteers, Twelve is the poorest district, which brings us to the question, what's a mind like his supposed to do in a coal mine, he's rotting just the same as me, saw the games as his only opportunity to ever go anywhere or be anybody, there must be criminal rings that operate between districts, EVERYBODY watches these games, he felt closed in by his own horizon, and his motive is to widen it, he's not just going to win this, he's going prove himself powerful, invincible, he's going to put on such a show that the people who can set him free will be convinced that they can't live without him, what do you think his relationship is with Irene?"

I blink.

First he won't speak with us about planning and now...what? The torrent of information is disorienting. What am I doing, what's going on? I'm standing in the woods talking to a walking leaf pile, and it wants to know about two people I've barely met. There's got to be one moment when my life went from ordinary to all wrong (besides the obvious, my selection for this death arena) but I can't seem to place it. _Oh, I remember now, it was meeting Sherlock._

"Relationship... with... Irene?" I say.

"Yes, the girl from Twelve," Sherlock says impatiently, "the one who came with Jim, they're practically inseparable, do you think she's his willing partner, or do you think he's controlling her through fear?"

"Irene might have said he's her boyfriend in her interview," Molly says, with something approaching disgust, "but they can't truly love each other. It's just not right, between them."

"Molly, stop talking," Sherlock says, without looking at her.

"Now hang on just a minute," I say, "why did you say that, why is it that Molly can't talk?"

"Because this is a battlefield and she's not a soldier, did you ever see Jim acting submissive in any way to Irene? When you happened to see them before the games? You definitely paid more attention to the others than I did, before we got here, I wasn't paying attention at all, really, your information could be very valuable to me."

And Molly's walking off, and I can't be sure she isn't crying.

And my mind is coming up with a LOT of information that could be valuable to him right now.

"Maybe you should go back into the woods and ask your forest friends for help?" I say, slowly and pointedly. "Because I see you're not very interested in making any human ones."

He blinks. Looks uncomfortable. Like maybe he knows how rude he's been to Molly but doesn't want to admit it. And like maybe he knows how unresolved his last encounter with Molly was. "John…"

"Molly," I call out, firmly. "Come back. Sherlock is going to apologize for what he said, and he's going to thank you for saving his life the other day."

She turns around, looks timidly from me to the leaf mound that's Sherlock.

I beckon. She comes. I put my hands on her shoulders, turn her to face Sherlock, and we both look at him. I'm looking at him, Molly's probably looking at the ground.

I wait. I don't know what I'm waiting for. I never know what I'm waiting for, with Sherlock. But whatever it was I was waiting for, he surprises me -

"I'm sorry. And thank you. I didn't deserve it."

He sounds absolutely sincere. Of course, he does _look_ absolutely like a forest floor at the moment, and I know for a fact that he is not...what Sherlock is really thinking at any point in time is anyone's guess.

And Molly answers: "It's okay. You're welcome. You did."

And she turns again, to go, a victor, and I'm really very proud of her.

Sherlock watches her go, and I watch Sherlock watch her go.

He doesn't seem to know what to do. He looks small again, very small.

It strikes me that Molly and I just got very aggressive and defensive towards a kid who's just spent a few hours carefully plastering leaves to himself with dirt. I find I'm ashamed of myself, then indignant and angry to think I was just ashamed for sticking up for myself, then just confused. Very confused. Is there any other possible response to Sherlock?

"I didn't," he says quietly, still facing Molly even though she's out of earshot by now.

A few seconds go by. Another few.

"That looks really good," I say, nodding at his...costume. "Effective. I had no idea you were there until you said something. Think it's time to get cleaned up now?"

He turns to me, studies me, not saying anything. It's disconcerting. Then, finally, in a very low voice -

"She's going to win? Molly's going to win?"

"What?"

He glances quickly in Molly's direction, then back to me. "You and Molly. You talked about what you'd do if both of you were the last ones, you must have..."

He's having trouble finishing his thought, and finally settles on saying nothing more.

I realize, incredulously, that he's trying to ask me if I'd sacrifice myself for Molly, and trying to do so tactfully. Trying. Tact. Is that really Sherlock Holmes under there?

"Yes of course," I say quietly. "Why?"

His mouth becomes a hard line. "She will," he says. "Win. I only thought it... responsible... to let you know."

Unsurprisingly, I have no idea what to say.

"I am glad to have known you, John," he says. "Molly, too. The odds cannot be relied on to be in your favor, but I swear to you, so long as I am alive, I can."

And he turns to leave, fading easily into the woods.

"The Gamemakers are leaving us alone because Jim's being interesting," he says, still walking, not looking back. "You don't have to worry about them. Only Jim. Possibly Irene. I don't think I'll wash up; don't want to bother the cut."

When he's finally out of sight, it hits me that Sherlock very likely saved our lives, Molly's and mine, when he got supplies from his sponsor that first time. And we never thanked _him_.

By the time I get back, Molly's already finished setting up dinner. She's quick to smile, say it's nothing. I smile awkwardly and sit down. In less than a week, she's become the strongest, bravest, most genuinely kind person I've ever known.

I'm going to die for her, I realize.

I have faith in Sherlock Holmes, I realize seconds later.


	6. Chapter 6

"SWORD!" Sherlock shouts. "SWORD, SWORD, SWORD!"

He's wearing a lily pad on his head and repeatedly poking what can only be a camera, hidden in a crevice in our little cliff. He's been conversing with this camera about a sword for a better part of the morning, but only now has his approach finally escalated to shouting.

"Sherlock, be quiet, we have to stay hidden from Jim," Molly scolds nervously.

"He as good as knows we're here, Molly, it's fine," Sherlock says, not looking away for a second. "SWORD! SWORRRD!"

"Now hang on, how do you know that?" I ask.

"He's poised himself to be your foil," Sherlock says, beating the rock with the lily pad repeatedly. "He deliberately left your team alive, your team alone, out of all the Tributes - you are now his most interesting enemy, his only enemy, and by his design. His plan must have been to create a rivalry. He needs a conflict to show off his skills properly, and you're it, you're the grand finale. He certainly couldn't have meant to let you get away for good. He'll have taken note of the direction we headed in, and he'll have been on the lookout for campfires, at any time of day, to get a sense of your general location; it's impossible to survive without fire, we all know that. It wouldn't surprise me if he'd already sent scouts, but regardless, he'll have sent them before – f*ck dammit, SWORD! – he'll have sent them before he even attempts to make his move. He has nothing to gain in killing us unawares; by the time he becomes important to us, he'll have found out everything he needs to know about our habits and location. Bottom line, it's quite alright if we're a bit loud every now and then; actually, urm, I think the effectiveness of my current effort would be greatly boosted if you would be so kind as to –"

""Are you finally going to tell us some things about your plans that determine whether we live or die?" I ask. "Jim wants to catch us, and we're not running, we're doing what he wants, why is that?"

"We're doing what he wants? I rather like to think of it as going the other way around," Sherlock says amusedly. "SWORD."

"Oh just tell us what you're thinking," I say. "If he's coming for us, I don't see why we shouldn't try to escape him. In fact, maybe I'll get a start on trying to escape right now."

"If Jim wants to tease a conflict out of us, he'll have to meet us," Sherlock says. He's not looking up, I don't think he's taking my threat seriously. "He needs the conflict, so he needs the meeting. If we try to take what he wants away from him, he'll fight for it, and keep fighting for it."

"And if we want to trick him, we have to start by looking like we're giving him he wants," Molly finishes.

Sherlock turns to her, with interest. Smiles. "Yes," he says, smile widening as he turns back (again, "thwack" goes the lily pad against the stone).

"He got a twelve on his skills evaluation," I say, "and you mean to get close to him? You think you can trick him and walk away?"

"He got a twelve, that means he's good!" Sherlock says contentedly. "And I got a zero, and that could mean anything. He thinks he has you all figured out, John, and he'll wage his war against you. He doesn't think it means anything that you've picked up a straggler. Won't he be surprised when I burn the heart out of him."

I look at Molly, to see if she's as uncomfortable as I am, at this, and she is. Then Sherlock puts the ruined lily pad back on his head, hooks his fingers in at the corners of his mouth, and starts to make silly faces in the most stoic manner I've ever seen.

I really don't know what to say.

"So you… you do HAVE a plan?" I settle on.

"Yes," Sherlock says.

"And are you going to tell us?" I ask.

"Oh, John, unfinished thoughts are disgusting creatures, I've told you time and time again," Sherlock says. He takes his fingers out of his mouth to talk, but replaces them when he finishes.

"You don't even have a complete plan," I say. "Nice."

"There's no such thing, plans rely on circumstance to develop," Sherlock says, not bothering with his fingers this time.

"So you're really NOT going to tell us, and we'll sort of…find out things as they happen," I say, but he cuts me off – "BOOKS, THOSE BOOKS EVERYONE IN THE CAPITOL IS READING, THAT NEW ONE THAT CAME OUT JUST A WEEK AGO, _CATCHING MOCKINGJAYS_… RUE DIES, AND IT'S AWFUL."

I try to steer him back to our conversation, but he is ignoring me completely now. Even when I shake him. Before I get too frustrated, I go stand by Molly and resort to just watching him yell things at the camera.

"THE PASSWORD IS "SHER," S-H-E-R, A SWORD, I REQUIRE A SWORD."

"How does he know all of this?" I ask Molly. "About books and things, none of their entertainment gets far enough through the districts to reach Six."

"When all of us were strategizing for the games, at the Capitol, he was trying to figure things out about his surroundings," Molly says. "Trying to deduce as much as he could, about anything and everything, from little details, conversations. It's a hobby of his. He thought he was going to die in the Games, and was only trying to pass the time. If everyone was talking about those books, he knows a lot about them, and lots more than just what he overheard – he's brilliant at piecing things together. You should ask him to tell you things about yourself sometime, it's just amazing. He told me I was a gravedigger's daughter, and volunteered at a healer's."

"And he told you this when you were getting him cleaned up last night and washing his clothes, I presume" I say stiffly. It doesn't bother me how quickly she was able to talk him out of going to bed in all his leafy splendor, not at all… okay, so maybe it does.

"John, please, be just a bit more patient with him," Molly says.

"And you see him going out of his way to be patient with us?" I say.

"Well, yes," she says. "I see him being a lot more patient. Before the games started he treated everyone like wallpaper; the fact that he speaks with us at all says he's trying."

"Oh, so you were aware of him?" I say. "Before the games?"

She blushes, opens her mouth.

"She changed her hair this morning," Sherlock says. "First time she's done it since the games started. It looked better how it was before."

"And I'll change yours if they send that sword you're asking for," Molly says dangerously. "Tell them that, maybe it'll help convince them to send it. Did you deduce that I'm an aspiring hairdresser, too? No you _didn't_, and that's because I'm _NOT_."

He looks at her with saucer eyes for a moment, then turns back around, edges closer to the camera, and begins poking it studiously and submissively.

To that, I can only contribute a look. To both of them. He never listens to me, fights me all the way, but Molly can wrap him around her little finger whenever she wants to. I don't understand. I know it shouldn't bother me so much, but really, it does. Sherlock was right. I grudge him the victory, but he was right. People do walk on me. A lot. He walks on me. He doesn't walk on Molly...well, not successfully.

"You can prevent this footage from reaching the viewers," Sherlock is saying to the camera, "but you have to watch it yourselves. You have to monitor our every move, and I shall make you all very sad until I get my way. I wonder how many words rhyme with"sad." Bad…dad…lily pad…"

"Add," Molly offers, like she hadn't just been threatening him.

"Cad," I say sourly.

"Comrade," he says pleasantly, to me, doing that thing where his mouth smiles but his face doesn't.

"Mad," I say, giving him a look.

"Plaid," Molly says.

"Glad," he says brightly.

I take a step forward, Molly grabs my arm, "Boys, please! Look at you both! Really! Act your ages, not your district numbers!"

"Sword," Sherlock says to the camera, not looking up.

And suddenly, in the most stunning sense of irony I've seen in a long time, Irene Adler leaps out of the bushes holding _exactly_ a sword, and comes running at us, poised to swing.

Comes running at me, poised to swing at me.


	7. Chapter 7

"MOLLY, UP THE CLIFF, RUN UP AND WAIT," Sherlock shouts, and to my horror I realize he's just as surprised at the development as we are. And, and he's running, away, he's not going to help me, I am alone in this, Irene's going to cut me in half…

I start running. Terrified. Betrayed. I can hear her start laughing, a little crazed– the straightforward execution has turned into pursuit. It's hard to process information, I can hear heavy breathing and running feet; my feet, her feet, Molly's scrambling up the cliff...is that just Irene that's behind me, or

"Sherlock, she thinks you're me!" comes Sherlock's voice from behind me, behind Irene, in an imitation of my voice. He's running too, running after us. He sounds surprised and really scared, but there's distance to it; if you know him, you can tell it's only acting.

At any rate, it confuses Irene; I hear her stop running, like she's stopped to turn around, and then I hear a clang.

I don't want Sherlock fighting her on his own, so I turn around to help, and I see them going at each other. Sherlock has the iron pot from the campsite. He wasn't abandoning me, he was running for the only thing we have that has a hope of stopping a sword.

Oh.

Then I've reached them, and I have Irene in a headlock, and it's as good as over. She swings the sword at me, but Sherlock drops the pot and goes in for her wrist, unarmed. I'm startled and instantly very worried, but he must have figured she'd be too preoccupied to hurt him before he could get the sword from her. He turns out to be right; I hear her gasp in pain, see him come away with the weapon, unharmed. When we all finally stop moving, I still have Irene, and Sherlock is lightly touching the blade to her face, right down the middle, along her forehead and then her nose.

He looks… different. Dangerous. _Efficient._ If someone walked in right now, they'd never believe he'd just been messing around with a lily pad on his head. I'd never seen him fight before, but… I hope he never wants to fight me, let's say. It's a little disturbing.

"Jim sent you to kill John, why," Sherlock says, with cold frustration. I've known him long enough to realize that he hadn't been expecting her actions, and his fury now is directed a lot at himself, for being wrong, and at the universe, for letting him.

"Oh, you think Jim is the only one who plans, do you," she says, laughing harshly. "Are you a planner too? Jim would be delighted. Do you know how hard it's been for him, trying to make fighting John interesting? We had to come up with some drama about a traitor in our midst, some made up plot to kill Jim, to drag things out. Jim thought seven days would give you enough of a head start for there to be a challenge, but I see all you've done is come wait here. Won't he be disappointed."

"This supposed plot took seven days, from the start of the Games? It's been eight days now, I don't believe you, there was no –," Sherlock says, and the distant boom of the cannon cuts him off.

"The difference between dying and dead is, in Jim's world, a very unimportant detail," Irene says, face smooth and emotionless. "Which is why I need your help."

"You just tried to kill John," Sherlock says, in a voice of pure ice. _Is he pressing the sword down on her face?_ Hang on, am I missing something? Maybe he wasn't just upset about being wrong, maybe... could it be he's actually upset that she tried to kill me? As in, he was actually... worried about me? "_Sherlock_," I hiss, "_It's okay._" We already have her at our mercy. I really, really don't want him to be cruel to her, on my account. It strikes me that Molly and I, and Sherlock, really are still strangers, in many respects... who is this kid? Who is he, really?

"Well of course I tried to kill John," Irene says, not seeming too bothered. I'm impressed by how brave she is THAT'S ME she's talking about so callously, isn't it. She continues: "I thought everything was hopeless, wanted to take Jim's victory away from him, if I really had to die. But I don't think it's hopeless anymore, Sherlock. I really don't. At least, not right away, not for a few days. Not since I found out that you're so frightening and clever. I'll take a few more days if I can have them, even if that's all I can have. I know there's a good chance you'll end up killing me in the end, but I want those few days. Help me, and I will make your life easy. I'm smarter than you think. Smarter than Jim thought, don't you make his mistake too. Also, I know things about Jim that you might want to be aware of."

"There's a good chance _you'll_ end up killing _us_ in the end, why should–" he starts, then she starts to unbutton the front of her shirt.

"There's cameras," I remind her, awkwardly. This is very awkward. Veeeery awkward. Please stop that, Irene.

She laughs, softly and melodiously, and keeps going.

"Oh. I see," Sherlock muses. I catch his face as I'm trying to settle on a spot to look at that's not Irene, and he's not looking away at all, like he can't. I haven't seen him look like this before – strangely fascinated, but like he doesn't know why. Sherlock continues- "You brought a button-down shirt to a survival scenario? And such a bold move, and, as John pointed out, in front of cameras. Couple that with the fact that you're a survivor to the core, Miss Adler, and we have our only conclusion. You didn't put your name in the pile for the Games in exchange for tesserae once, or at least, not often. You thought you could outsmart the Hunger Games, you found… you found other ways to earn your bread, when things got hard. And yet here you are now. I bet that hurts."

She's frozen, now. I can only imagine the look on her face. I've never seen Sherlock use his strange powers to try and crush someone before, but that's what's happening now, and it scares me a little. He's doing this for me and Molly, too. I wish he'd stop. I kind of wish he'd go back to the generally harmless moody smart guy I thought he was.

But Irene isn't out, not yet.

"I can play the guessing game too," she says, and I fancy she must be smiling. "And _my_ guess is, someone is going to die not knowing what these _other ways_ are like, am I right Mr. Holmes? Seems a great shame. Seems a really great shame. But it doesn't have to be that way."

"The cameras are receiving audio as well as visual," I remind them. "You're probably having this conversation in front of the whole country."

Another cannon goes off. Someone else has died. I jump, look at Sherlock, but he's completely focused on Irene. Was it Molly? No, it couldn't have been, we would have heard something…either way I'm scared, so scared…that's two cannons in the space of a few minutes, people have started dying again…

"Oh, I _know_ we're having it in front of the whole country, John," Sherlock says in a monotone, still not taking his eyes off Irene. "If there's one thing the whole country loves more than violence, it's sex. The Gamemakers wouldn't fail to broadcast this for the world. But Irene, I'm sorry, I shall have to decline your offer; I just prefer the violence, really."

"Ooh, liar, you are going to LOVE both at once," Irene says. If the camera's on my face right now, the audience is probably in stitches. Oh dear goodness. What am I even doing here. What went wrong in my life.

There is a long pause.

"Your interest in me is part of Jim's plan," Sherlock says. "I'm right, aren't I?" My heart sinks, suddenly. He didn't exactly drop the sword and kiss her, but there's something in his voice I don't like. Is he… is he actually considering…No, I need him! Molly and I need him, he was going to save us, he as good as promised me that Molly would win. Sherlock wouldn't do this…would he?

"Little Jim thinks I'm dead," Irene says pleasantly. "One of those cannons we just heard, he thinks it was me. I left him a little puzzle. He'll be here sometime after nightfall, at the soonest. Even he'll need to see the picture in the sky that's not mine, I think. That's plenty of time, love."

There is another long pause.

"You've given me a lot of information," Sherlock says quietly, "but I have yet to receive indication that I can trust a word of it." My heart sinks further and further. Things in the universe I had thought constant are breaking apart. I look at him, betrayed, and he's still ignoring me, transfixed by Irene. No, no, no, stop it…please…she's not even that pretty… okay yes she is, but PLEASE.

"You're not thinking, clever boy," Irene purrs, running her finger along the sword blade towards Sherlock's hands on the hilt. "You saw full well that I was legitimately trying to kill John. Surely you've figured out by now that Jim's plans can't include that. So I must be acting outside of them. And if I'm acting outside of them, why, Jim will be simply livid when he finds out I've escaped him. He doesn't know you at all; if he found us, he'd want to kill me infinitely more than he'd want to kill you. You must know that, if it's not for Jim, I must be showing interest to protect myself. Surely you're smart enough for that; I mean, you're cute, but not THAT cute. Anyways, if Jim had a chance of reaching us, I wouldn't be protecting myself, would I. If Jim had a chance of reaching us, I'd still be running. You have my word that there is absolutely no danger until nightfall. You have anything of me that you want, Sherlock. Anything." Her hand has reached his hand, and her fingers are playing with one of his, mischievously pulling it away from the sword hilt with cutesy little jerks.

A little drain opens up in the universe, and my hopes and dreams start to

"So Jim's away! That clarifies things!" Sherlock says suddenly, his voice completely restored to its usual confidence and authority. Then he turns to the camera. And begins to speak.

"You've heard me say that Jim is after recognition," he says, to all of Panem. "You would do well to admire him because that's recognition that YOU will never get. History will swallow you. It swallowed people before there was the Capitol, but it's going to swallow YOU most of all because of the Capitol. They don't let you accomplish things. You will have done nothing of importance by the time you die, and nothing is what the human race will remember, down the road. The Capitol grudgingly lets US matter, though they take our lives, as dues. You are so eager to watch these Games because you want so badly to see what it's like, to achieve in any sense. You nibble around the edges of our importance. But it won't save you. Nothing can save you. It won't even fill you up. You, dear viewers, are the hungry ones. Happy Hunger Games. Goodbye."

SHERLOCK! _That's just horrible, why would you…_

I can hear things, faint things, in the distance. People yelling? Another noise, one I can't place…

"They'll start hitting us too, in a bit," Sherlock says, leaving Irene and walking briskly towards the cliff. They? Start hitting…is he getting worried? He continues: "Me, mostly. Molly! Come down, as quickly as you can, tell me where the smoke was."

Smoke?

Molly does come down, comes over to him, hugs him, comes away with a large-ish red stain on her jacket.

"Sherlock, your arm!"

"Yes, yes, pots are smooth, swords bounce off them, she clipped my arm, nothing serious," Sherlock says briskly, pulling his injury away from her probing hands. It's in the same place he cut himself earlier; it's not life-threatening, but it's more serious than "nothing serious," I can tell from here. "Molly, we'll worry about that later, right now we're in danger, there's not much time, where did you see the smoke?"

Irene is starting to thrash and squirm; I can still hold her, but it was much easier when Sherlock had his sword at her face. "Sherlock!" I say. "Little help?"

"It was a little under a mile over in that direction," Molly says, pointing. "But what is it, what's going on, how did you know there'd be smoke, I don't –"

"Then RUN, John, Molly," Sherlock says urgently, pointing, "in THIS direction!"

"What about Irene?" I ask, but Sherlock's already coming towards Irene and me, raising his sword, face simultaneously unreadable and _perfectly_ readable, _he's going to kill her, oh God…_

Suddenly, I hear a crackle, smell smoke. The woods is catching fire, all around us. I'm so surprised and terrified my hold on Irene loosens, and she wastes no time in elbowing me, hard, stomping on my feet, and breaking free. I catch sight of her face for an instant and see a thin, bleeding cut down the middle.

"EVERYBODY GET OUT OF HERE, RUN," Sherlock screams, charging at Irene with frightening resolve. He swings the sword, misses, grabs her by her long braid - "BEFORE THEY SEND THE FIREBALLS, RUN, YOU IDIOTS, RUN! THIS IS THE PLAN I'VE BEEN WORKING ON ALL THIS TIME, AND NOW YOU HAVE TO RUN, THAT'S PART OF IT, RUN, RUN NOW!" He starts to swing the sword at Irene's face, and I have to look away…

Wait, fireballs?

There's a hissing noise, like a launching cannon, and a fireball in full glory comes hurtling towards us. We all dive away. Irene's utterly and completely gone when I next look over by Sherlock; I see him holding a sheared piece of braid and sporting an impressive knife wound across his face. He looks a little stunned and confused. I can hear Molly start to run. I follow Molly, stop, turn around.

"What about you?" I ask Sherlock.

He picks up a flaming branch and throws it at my head, and the braid with it, with a look of more rage than I would have thought even him to be capable of. "You take Irene when she catches up with you, I'll get the rest," he snarls after me. "Keep Molly safe, John!"

I dodge the branch just in time.

I run.

I only look back once, but I see him tearing off into the woods pressing his jacket to his face, surrounded by leaping flames, sword in hand, the most concentrated unit of furious resolve I've ever seen and can ever hope to see. The Sherlock I thought I knew was an awkward, quirky kid with, let's be realistic here, special needs. This Sherlock is great and terrible, like a black-winged guardian angel, or maybe a dragon. Because Molly and I needed him to be. _"Do you think he's hoping to be friends?"_ Molly had said once. I can see now that he IS our friend. It took a wire-thin red line down Irene Adler's face to finally convince me, but really, we mean the very world to him. I'm not sure what to think, everything's happening so quickly. It's a frightening responsibility, to be sure! When Molly and I decided not to try and kill the other kids, the idea hadn't been to find someone else to do it for us! I didn't point that little death phoenix after Jim and say, "Come on Sherlock, let's have his guts out!" He just... ran off on his own... I should have known, should have tried to stop him… maybe…? But then again, what did I _think_ he was going to do? This is what I wanted after all, wasn't it...? I don't know…

It finally sinks in that our death phoenix is a phoenix that can't come back to life, and he's running into a flaming woods to take on two kids on his own. The odds of his survival are dismal, but he's doing it anyway. Damn you Sherlock, don't do this to us, don't spend a week driving us up the walls then show us at the last minute you really cared and then…then… Or, alright, so maybe you were _trying_ to show us you really cared this whole time but just weren't very good at it... or maybe we just weren't very good at believing you... or… ok, so maybe _I_ was the only one who wasn't… _Damn you Sherlock, damn you, just come back..._

But something tells me he's not coming back, something tells me this is the last I'll ever see of him.

Sherlock and I only talked about who would die, between Molly and me, I realize. He must have seen his own death as one of his givens. I feel so selfish for never even asking about him. It was right there, so obvious, he as good as told me he was going to sacrifice himself too, and I never said anything. I asked him if he was coming with us, just now, like an idiot, but Molly never did. She must have figured it out a long time ago, grudgingly accepted it, like I'm accepting it now. I'm stupid, as well as selfish. I'd thought he was making progress, maybe wanting to live again, after we saved him, but I see now that he never changed. He's still given up. This is just what it looks like, now. There's just the little roadblock of us, to take care of, and he'll be on his way.

_It isn't right._

I just want to stop running, seize one of those hidden cameras Sherlock can find so easily, scream into it, scream at everyone, the Capitol, the public, they let this keep happening, _before I came here I used to let it keep happening_, it's sick, it's disgusting, they're disgusting, I'm disgusting – _LOOK WHAT YOU'RE DOING, look what these Games are doing. Look at Sherlock. He's brilliant, he can do things no one else can do, he cares so much about the people who are close to him, maybe he doesn't exactly act normally all the time, maybe he gets petty at the oddest provocations, but that's just it, he's…he's… he's Sherlock. You took all of that, all of those broken pieces trying to be whole, and you not only threw them away, you made him throw them away. He's running away to die now. And for what, why do you have to do it? Teaching a lesson the districts already know. Entertainment. Because you can._

I can't help but think that if Sherlock had lived in another place, in another time...

I don't know.

Things would be better for him.

I have always lived firmly convinced that I shouldn't hate, but right now I can hardly feel anything else, and it doesn't even seem wrong. I can't rightly appreciate the absolute purity and tragedy of the little soul we rescued, without also wanting to do serious harm to the people responsible for what he is running through and running into right now.

And it didn't even have to go this way. There's nothing intrinsically more valuable about Molly or me than him. He could have put all of his remarkable skills into saving himself. Could have convinced us to help him. Could have joined the other side and convinced them. But he didn't. And we let him. Can we…can we be forgiven for that?

_These. Games. Aren't. Right._

When we finally stop for the night, I can see that Molly's crying, she doesn't even bother to hide her face.

When we hear a cannon later, I join her.

Maybe Sherlock's my friend, too.


	8. Chapter 8

The cannon wasn't Sherlock.

We don't dare go to sleep before we've seen the night's projection in the sky, and the face they show belongs to the tall kid from One. There's only five of us now: me, Molly, Irene, Sherlock, and Jim.

That could mean anything. And I'm certain Sherlock is going to be on the warpath until either our enemies are dead or he is, so any relief that he's still alive now has its fair measure of hopelessness. The thought hits me that if we ever see Sherlock's picture up in the sky, he's going to be glaring down on us. I can't imagine he would have cooperated for the photoshoot they got those pictures from.

Oh, Sherlock. I - I have to think about something else.

We spend most of the following day travelling. Molly thought to head for the cornucopia to see if there are any supplies left, which I thought was a great idea. It's in a "safe" enough direction, in relation to where we think Jim and the fires are. Our pot got lost in the fire, and, once again, we have nothing to boil water in. The last time I ate or drank was before Irene attacked me.

If Sherlock's plan works how he was hoping, maybe everything will be over before supplies become an issue.

Well. Almost over. There's still the matter of… of me.

I try not to think about it.

Not that there's anything going on to distract me from it.

Things are so different without Sherlock.

Quieter.

But not in a good way.

Now that nature has a chance to get a word in edgewise, I find I'm listening for birds. Ever since we first heard the birds singing Sherlock's sad song, we've been hearing it again and again, slightly different each time, but growing longer and longer. Molly and I are convinced that he's composing it himself and using the birds to help him, listening to them play it back to him as he puzzles out how to improve it or take it farther. It sounds like a legitimate piece of music, and, like so many other things he does and I wish weren't impressive... it's impressive. And how can he compose music on top of all of these convoluted high-stakes plots?

The birds are silent now, though. The fires must have scared them away.

Another cannon goes off as we're walking, and Molly grabs me.

We take a moment to stand still, holding each other.

"Are you okay?" I ask her, after we've been quiet for a while.

She nods. "You?"

I nod, and we keep walking. We'll save our sorrow for certainty, and the security of a campsite.

When night falls, we see the face in the sky, and once again, it's not Sherlock's.

James Moriarty is dead.

Besides Molly and me, only Sherlock and Irene are left.

We have no idea what to think.

We did find the cornucopia, and there were lots of supplies left over, Molly was right. The concept of food just lying around and available for eating is almost foreign to me, by now. It's incredible. It's there, and I can just pick it up and eat it. I can pick it up, and I can eat it. There's crackers, dried meats, dried fruits, water bottles, not to mention the wealth of supplies: weapons, first aid, bug spray, a tinder box, everything we could imagine and a heap of things we couldn't… we gathered, we stuffed ourselves, then we set up camp inside the metal structure. All of the bodies have been removed, but there are still traces here and there of what happened. There are still… pieces, things you weren't hoping to discover, strewn about the grass. We have general misgivings about the place, but it feels safer than the woods. It feels like we're clamoring against the "exit." This is where we came in.

We wait. Try to sleep, one at a time.

I'm the one on watch duty to cover the tail end of the night, and with the sun comes approaching footsteps.


	9. Chapter 9

"I was positive Jim's play would be to keep his distance and send someone to infiltrate your group,"Sherlock is saying. We can't get him to stop talking, despite his injuries. He's explaining his plan, THE plan, the one that he'd been cultivating since the start and had had something to do with the fires just a few days ago, the one Irene had acted outside of. "He had to have some kind of drama, something showy enough to be impressive. Just killing you outright would never do, that would be impossible to make interesting. I thought of the possibility of him staging his own sort of, game for you to try to survive, some thing he rigged together to make you squirm around, that's entertaining enough. But when I thought about it more, that doesn't fit in with all of our givens. He was advertising to criminals. They don't need people who can be cruel, they have plenty of people who can be cruel, they need someone who can pass himself off as trustworthy, to as many people as possible. And Jim's already played us something to that tune. All of the tributes at the beginning, dead, that stinks of organization. Half of those kids should have been running for the woods, their sponsors must have had the sense to tell them, they had no business in a bloodbath like that. All of them died but John and Molly, the ones Jim wanted alive, and then me, the accident. He must have arranged it, talked to everyone before the Games. He tried to talk to me about something or other before the Games, I know. I wasn't paying attention then, gave him what for and sent him on his way, but I realize now he must have been trying to include me in that first wipeout. I don't know for sure what was so special about John and Molly, but I fancy he must have picked them because they're the most normal of the tributes; you symbolize 'most people'very well, John. A perfect representative of the Ordinaries to defeat."

Irene brought Sherlock in this morning without a word, just put up her hands as a sign of peace and handed him over so we could fix him up. He has burns all over, nothing serious, but painful. There are some ugly bruises on his neck, and one on his forehead, which Irene claims responsibility for. Then there's also the cut on his arm, from the sword, and on his face, from the knife. Thankfully, we had a wealth of supplies for his treatment, and the skill to know how to use them, and now we've got him lying against a backpack mound and wrapped up in a blanket to try and induce a sense of rest and quiet. Judging by his words-per-minute rate, the blanket doesn't seem to have much effect.

And I'm really pretty sure he's gone and insulted me again.

"Excuse me?" I say.

"I knew Jim was going to send someone to our little family who wanted to be our friend, probably in some staged dire need," Sherlock says, predictably ignoring me, "and we were supposed to take them in and help them, because we don't know any better, we think we're Good People, we try to Do the Right Thing, we don't even let random emo kids give up the Games, we're Special! Irene was by far the best candidate for the mole. A damsel in distress, quite a charmer, her very area of expertise, [here he does a Voice] 'Oh please, John, help me, these nasty branches tore my shirt open, can you mend it for my by any chance? Oh please, John, I'm so scared of the dark, will you hold me close to you?'"

"Stop it," Irene says, spit, or possibly venom, flying from her mouth.

"That's why I was asking you about her," Sherlock says to me, predictably ignoring her. "I needed to know how much Jim thought he could trust her. Because if he didn't trust Irene, he'd go himself, none of the others were suitable enough. But in any case, we'd be getting a visit from someone, and that would be the moment the audience, who'd been following from Jim's side, we certainly weren't doing anything interesting, would have been waiting for. We'd be guaranteed a nation in the bleachers. And Jim would HAVE to be far away. He'd know his prey would suspect a trap. He would have to make that first move with his main force at a distance, start creeping in as you grew less and less suspicious. So, now I have an audience, and John and Molly have a head start. I knew if I said something really shocking and disturbing, that the viewers could not be permitted to see, the Gamemakers would have to do something about it. They wouldn't target me, not right away. That would look like I was being punished, and that would show that I was threatening them, and it was working. They don't want to look threatened. They'd pull a distraction – can you see now that I couldn't tell you and Molly, John? That my plan involved the Gamemakers, and they couldn't know? Anyway, our captors would arrange a distraction, and what do they have to distract people with that's better than Jim's team, waiting unsuspecting in a forest that's rigged to catch on fire at the touch of a button?"

"How did you know about the fire?" I want to know.

He seems genuinely confused.

"Wh… you didn't see the scrapes on the trees where workers had climbed up to install or maybe inspect the launchers and igniters before the games… the patterns in the forest floor here and there a shade too regular to be from nature, though made to look like nature, patterns to conceal something? The patches of loose earth everywhere where there'd been digging or covering up? The suspicious clumps of dry, dead leaves, and out of season? I did actually find one of the fireball launchers, but you could really tell something was there by the clumsy attempts to... And really, practically all they do in forest Hunger Games is set people on fire, what else is there TO do? That's why we haven't had a forest one in so many years, so people don't get tired of watching burning kids running around all over… Molly, did you know? About the fire?"

She shakes her head.

"Irene?"

Irene just folds her arms. She looks mildly angry.

"I mean, the scrapes on the trees could have been to put up Tracker Jacker nests or cameras, but trees had them that didn't have any of those, so I assumed…wait, none of you knew?"

We're all staring at him now.

"Well… I knew that if I said something really offensive, really dangerous, they'd have to put up a distraction," he continues, sounding tired, rushing, "and the quickest and most effective thing to do would be to set Jim's part of the woods on fire, whereupon Molly, from atop the high place in our camp, not a tree because trees can catch fire, that's why I needed a cliff, would be able to see it, and I'd know where to run and where to make you both run away from, as they set my part of the woods on fire, having already established fire as a random event and not a punishment in weakness, and then I'd run over to Jim's campsite and take out anyone the fire left me."

"He really is very good," Irene says dryly. She hasn't denied anything from the start. But I have more on my mind than Sherlock's intelligence right now.

"Another reason you wanted to wait for the spy to come was so you would be guaranteed one of your enemies, absolutely helpless, right in front of you, so you could kill them in cold blood?" I say, remembering how easily and naturally he'd swung at Irene, grabbed her braid. Remembering how he'd pressed the sword against her face. The line down her forehead is dark red now, all closed up. "That's why you wanted to wait for the spy to show up before you set off the fire?" I'm quite happy to have him back, but this needs to be addressed.

The hush is almost tangible, but he answers, quite conversationally, "It really did work out quite nicely that way, and there's even more, actually - a spy would also signify that the pack had settled down and wouldn't be in a position to pick up supplies and leave in a hurry." He doesn't even seem to realize the impact my words had had. "I was very concerned when Irene upset my predictions," Sherlock continues. "I had to reevaluate, do a little thinking on my feet. But it worked out."

"If I'd told you Jim was nearby, there would have been no need for setting any fires at all, and you would have killed me right then and there," Irene says uncomfortably. "John wouldn't have panicked, I wouldn't have been able to get away, and I'd be dead now." We all look from her to Sherlock. They're doing that thing where they read each others' minds again.

"Cleanly," Sherlock says without emotion.

Molly looks at me, I pretend I hadn't just looked at her.

No one has anything to say. Nothing at all.

"Really," Sherlock says, finally. "Look, I'm not stupid, I know what's wrong with me, ooh, I'm a little _sociopath_, it's not very nice of me to be like this, is it, makes things awkward for the whole room. That's what you're thinking, isn't it. That's what District Five thought too, or Six, or Seven, one of those, the one that gets me back if the Games spit me up alive. Are you lot going to try and unwrite me too? Make me"better"? Maybe if you sit with me and ask me lots of questions I'll start caring whether Irene lives or dies, is that it?"

"Stop," I say.

"I should stop talking about it so it stops being your problem," he says, nodding ruefully. "I see how it is. But understandable. It's quite a problem, really, it is. Ever see a highly-functioning sociopath?"

"Not until I met you," Molly says, and they make eye contact and hold it for a bit.

Why can everyone read each others' minds around here?

Sherlock looks away.

"_Mommy, look at the boy on the TV,_" he says mockingly, half to himself. "_Look at how many kids he's killed, and he doesn't even care. That's messed up, he's trying so hard at this, it's sick, someone should take him out quick before he kills anyone else, I don't like him._" A mocking mother's voice – "_Shh, he doesn't know any better._" Sherlock's own voice, breaking – "At least, that's what Mycroft and Mrs. Hudson would tell people…I didn't kill anyone, but that's what they'd say about … things…And now everyone can say that! And about killing people, this time! Precisely what I was trying to avoid, John! And all for you and Molly - _I must say, I'm really touched by your appreciation!_"

And this from the one who never seems to care what people think about him.

It suddenly occurs to me, to wonder what Sherlock should be fighting for exactly, what he would be motivated to survive for. What kind of life his district has to offer, as reward for winning the Games. It's an insight into numbing isolation I wasn't ready for.

At the same time, I can't help but recognize that all of his sympathy is for himself.

A stunned, anxious pause.

"You should rest," I tell Sherlock.

"You should," Irene agrees, her expression hard to read.

His breath sucks in, and out, and in and out, and he puts a hand to his face, I realize he's been holding back tears – "Oh look, a blanket, I feel so tired - NO JOHN, I'll never do that! They're going to throw something at us, we're cooperating too much, paints a big red target on us, they'll try to kill us any minute. I want to be awake when I die. So I can think about it as it's happening. Thinking helps me… helps me cope with things. I'm not going to die in my sleep, I refuse. Mycroft, you _snoop_, stop watching this instant, and I really do expect you to burn my things, everyone's watching, the whole District will know if you don't, and they'll be ashamed of you, in fact I hope they tickle you if you don't because I guess it's not much of a secret anymore that you're ticklish, is it."

I suppose he would have found things to keep on talking about, from there, but Molly comes over and throws her arms around him, injuries and all. She pulls the blanket over him more snugly, starts running her fingers through his hair, shushing softly. I'm not surprised by now that he lets her, just lays there like a kitten.

Irene is looking away. I follow suit.

"Jim could find us too,"Sherlock whispers. "Look at all of these supplies, it's no great feat to figure out where we've gone. It might have even been part of his plan from the start. He didn't destroy the things he didn't need, and he didn't gather them, either; maybe we were supposed to find them. Maybe he even went so far as to poison the food; maybe we'll all drop dead any minute."

"But Sherlock," Molly says, "Jim's dead, remember? There was the cannon, and then the picture."

"No he's not," Sherlock says." I never saw him. Not Irene either. We didn't kill him."

"Okay, then he's died somehow on his own," Irene says angrily. "Ate nightlock by mistake, fell off of something, who knows. We HEARD the CANNON."

"Possible, but it's disturbingly more likely that he's dug that sensor they monitor us with out of his arm," Sherlock says quietly. We all freeze. Look at each other.

"WHAT! None of you thought of that either?"

Suddenly, we hear wolves howl. Close. Molly looks nervous, but Irene's face grows white.

"We didn't lose them," she says, horrified, to Sherlock.

Before anyone can respond or Sherlock can get upset about being wrong, she's gone. Picks up the sword Sherlock stole from her, a knife from Molly and my weapons pile, her new backpack full of supplies, and she's out the door, running as fast as she can.

Sherlock sits bolt upright and stares after her. He gets up, takes a few steps forward, then stops, indecisive. Then he turns around, stomps out the fire, and runs to the back of the cave, motioning for us to follow. We do.

For a while, we don't hear anything.

Then we hear the pounding of running paws on grass. Lots of them. More than ten, maybe twenty. They're running past the cornucopia on the opposite side to the opening, right close to us as we hide, incidentally. They must have seen Irene run by and not realized there could be more people around, or been too caught up in the thrill of the chase to care.

Sherlock has his hand over his face, and he has to work to control his breathing. Maybe he cares a little for Irene after all...or at least, he does at this point. I worry that the wolves might hear him, but I tell myself that they're making a lot of noise themselves.

"We should climb onto the roof," Molly whispers. "When they go."

"Yes," I agree. I tap Sherlock, and he nods quickly, twice, without looking at me.

When the cannon goes off, Molly and I can't help it, we both look at Sherlock. His expression hasn't changed, though he must know that Irene's dead.

Well, she's dead, and the wolves are, to be realistic, probably eating her, and very preoccupied with it…now's our chance. We'll just have to be quiet. I head on out, and the others follow.

The structure isn't too hard to climb, not with three of us helping each other. What's hard is believing what we find on top of it.

Jim.

James Moriarty.

He seems to notice us for the first time and perks up, grinning like an idiot and waving at us with a neatly bandaged arm.

"I was listening!" he says, delighted. "You figured it out! Sherlock, is it? You figured out that I faked my death! And that I left you all of these presents! Oh I like you, Sherlock, you're good, you're _good_!"

We cringe instinctively; the wolves…

"Ohh… did you want me to be quiet?" he whispers, nodding over towards the wolves.

We can only stare.

"**YOLO~!**" he singsongs triumphantly, as loudly as triumphant singsonging can get.

And the wolves come.

Sherlock covers the distance between himself and Jim in a few seconds, and he doesn't ever stop running, and when he crashes into Jim, they both go over the edge.

We see a look of surprise on Jim's face.

And then they're gone.

Even knowing from the start that Sherlock could never be our lasting friend, that he was never ours to keep, I'm not prepared.

I could never be prepared for this, I realize.

The circulation starts to leave my hand, and I realize Molly's grabbing it. I work my fingers around her hand, grab back.

We hear some scuffling in the dirt, then against the side of the cornucopia, like someone's trying to climb back up, but the wolves get there before they have a chance.

We hear snarls.

Cries of pain.

Snapping teeth, ripping and tearing.

Someone half runs, half crawls around the structure and inside the cave beneath it, sobbing and whimpering, but the wolves follow.

Molly and I are holding each other very tightly.

And finally, after an agonizing eternity that can't have been more than a few minutes, the cannon goes off.

Sherlock's cannon.

It's likely that Molly is sobbing, but I honestly don't think I'm aware enough of my surroundings to tell.

Sherlock's gone.

He's gone.

There were times when I didn't think I liked him at all, times I didn't think he was human, even, but all I want now is for him to not be dead.

The wolves are still snarling and fighting and making noises all around us, but at the same time, everything seems perfectly still and quiet, somehow.

Sherlock's gone.

Suddenly, I realize there's only Molly and me left, and there's still something I have to do.


	10. Chapter 10

"Molly," I say, over the sound of the wolves, without knowing what to put after that.

She turns to me sharply, shakes her head, and I see that her face carries rage.

"Not you too," she says, in a voice that does not permit argument.

"Molly," I say again.

"I said I won't let you die for me!" she shrieks.

I try to pull away from her, but she won't let me, jerks me in closer, protectively.

She turns a tear-streaked, defiant face to the sky and yells, "GAMEMAKERS!"

I don't know what she's planning, but she's holding me so tightly, and I'm in so much shock, that it's easiest to just stand there and let it happen.

"LET US OUT!" Molly yells.

She's holding me really tightly, and we're not in a relationship, and it's awkward, I realize.

Molly, they're not going to let us out. I start to say something, but she shushes me.

"I'm not going to kill John!" Molly yells. Her voice is so passionately determined it's breaking, and it's really very attractive, but she's as close to my sister as anyone I'm not related to could possibly get… I can't explain it, but we were meant to just be friends. I don't think either of us finds the other very impressive. Besides, I know who_she_ gets doe-eyed over. My mind brings up the information that what's left of him is now in multiple pieces, some of which are inside wolves, and they're still eating him this very minute…I think I'm going to be sick.

"John and I are so close together that a random dangerous event you set up would take out both of us or none," Molly continues. "If you want one of us left, you'll have to kill one of us deliberately. It's not winning if I win because you killed John, or if he wins because you killed me. We both won the Hunger Games! You can put us in an arena, but you can't make us kill! THERE WILL BE NO MORE BLOODSHED. Let us go home."

Molly thought of that all by herself. Here I was watching Sherlock make plans like a kid at a circus, and Molly has the sense to realize she can participate too, has the sense to learn as well as observe. I feel very dumb. What have I contributed to anything? Jim happened to single me out because he thought I was the normal-est kid of the bunch, and I've been acting as our little chaos beacon, and following people around, and I honestly never should have made it past the first day, and suddenly here I am, a candidate for victory, and because of other peoples' efforts.

We hear a distant loud, droning noise, some kind of airship. Yes, there it is, heading right this way. Molly seems to shrink back on herself, unused to being so bold, a little shaken.

Is the airship really going to take us home?

When the ship finally gets to us, a net shoots out of it and hits us, knocking us over and pinning us to the metal. Our shrieks mix with harsh clangs. We were a bit close to the edge – we only climbed up, watched Sherlock go over, and basically stopped functioning, legs-wise. The net would have sent us over too if the edges of it hadn't clamped securely to the cornucopia. As it is, I'm just about upside-down. Wolves are gathering, jumping up; I blink every time snapping jaws fly up close to my face. Are they sort of… human-like? They're not ordinary wolves. It's really disturbing.

Ahhhhhh this is bad.

Not that it was much better before.

I see blood on some of the wolves' muzzles. As they jump and snap, spit flies out of their mouths, and I can see that some of it is tinged with red, and I can feel some of it land on my face. I feel sick again.

The airship flies up alongside us.

"Molly Hooper," says an amplified man's voice, from the ship. "You are disqualified for tampering with the Seventy-fourth Hunger Games, facing penalty of death."

"No!" I hear myself saying. "Disqualify me too! _If you disqualify her, I'll eat these and I'll die, you'll have no winner then!_"

It takes some fumbling, but I show him the nightlock berries I've been carrying around for… you know. What, it's better than a knife or a cliff or… I'll stop now.

I look directly at the windshield of the plane, look him directly in the eye as best I can manage.

"Nightlock berries! I swear to you I would do it. _And I have it on good authority that I can swallow upside-down._"

Silence hangs thick and heavy in the air.

"I've just tampered with the Games," I say pleasantly. "I'm disqualified too, now. Go on, then, off with my head! Who says our viewers needs a winner! It's not exactly a new concept, is it, the Capitol not providing them with something they want?"

The silence congeals. I just know he's talking to people above his pay grade in there.

Finally, the man speaks again.

"This concludes the Seventy-fourth Hunger Games," he says, loudly and clearly. He's not talking to us anymore. "On behalf of the Capitol, I award title of victor, posthumously, to Mr. Sherlock Holmes from District Six, the eligible tribute who survived the longest. Since he is not able to claim the reward he is due, a new reward will be constructed for his district, with minor rewards for his family. Please join us later for interviews with Mr. John Watson and Ms. Molly Hooper."

...Oh.

They called our bluff. We're going to be interviewed, and then we're going to be killed.

But…Sherlock… Sherlock, you won. Sherlock, you little sh*t, you _won_. I can't help but be proud of him, so proud, in spite of everything. He thought he was nothing. Now a nation praises his name. Oh, Sherlock. History will remember YOU.

But maybe History isn't done with us yet, me and Molly.

"I shouldn't have tampered,"Molly wails. "I'm just a kid, but I'm old enough to know better. I only hope my family doesn't resent me. I'm so sorry! I've brought so much shame to my District! Please… please make it quick…but I understand that it's necessary. Do it right after my interview. Get it over with. I don't deserve your mercy, but please divulge a little kindness, at least."

At first I don't understand, but then I do. We've both spent enough time around Sherlock to have an appreciation of how one communicates with our captors. Everyone's still watching. Do they want to see the Capitol kill a sobbing teenage girl? No! Molly's (persuasively) giving the Capitol a chance to appear gracious. She's giving them a chance to do something the country likes, be the good guy, after a whole Hunger Games of being publicly manipulated and spit on by kids.

All they have to do is give her our lives in return.

I instantly think of what this country did to Sherlock, what it does to all of us, and the thought of helping them paint themselves like good guys makes my skin crawl. It is something I May Not Do.

Then I think of Molly. Warm against me. Alive. Sentenced to death. Think of myself. I really don't want to die.

I have seconds to decide: intervene, or help.

My mind is blanking out.

What would Sherlock do? What clever thing would he think of?

…

Sherlock is a sociopath. We're doing what John would do, today.

"Yes," I say, "I repent too, but I repent too late. Though there is no hope for me now, I just want you, and all the public, to know that I'm sorry for my actions, as sorry as a child of sixteen can be, and I fully accept the consequences." Molly nudges me, and I start laughing confusedly and hysterically, which is probably going to turn into crying any second now.

They end up pardoning us. Graciously, with honeyed voices. I'm infinitely surprised that the plan actually worked, but it doesn't feel entirely like victory.

As we're taken away, we can see the work the wolves have made of someone. Molly points, and I see a twinkle of gold – Jim's mockingjay pin.

I see her look back at the cornucopia, and I don't say anything.

Then I realize, the birds are back, and they're singing Sherlock's sad song.

It sounds finished.


	11. Chapter 11

When the man with the microphone asked me to tell the audience the most remarkable thing about Sherlock's victory, I gave them a pained smile and told them, "He didn't know any better," and the crowd just fell apart.

I will always remember that moment, but overall, almost everything that happened immediately after Games was a blur. The Capitol made a big fuss over us, there were interviews and parades and fancy clothes, but the most lasting impression it left on me was a headache. For all the hype surrounding the events, there really isn't much about them to tell. After we got home, Molly and I, our sponsor told us, very urgently, not to be seen hanging out too much because that would look like conspiring. She told us that the Capitol would be on the lookout for ways to kill us or accuse us of something. Said they don't like being outsmarted, and that when they pardoned us, they very likely intended from the start to kill us later, when no one's around to judge them. It's all very scary, but for these past few weeks I've just been…tired. I can't care too much about them anymore. I'm incapable.

But, tired as I am, I've been thinking. Maybe I learned something from Sherlock after all...or maybe I'm not uselessly dumb after all, I mean, Sherlock didn't exactly patent thinking. Thing is, I started looking for connections where I hadn't looked before... and then I found some... and kept finding them...

It's been a week. I find Molly. At a time and place I'm sure we won't be watched. I can't hold this back much longer. If they're going to kill me for this, they can have fun.

"The cut," I say breathlessly, "on his arm, that was about where the sensor was."

"What?" Molly says. "Is this about Sherlock?"

"Yes," I say, "when he was trying to write with his other hand, he cut his arm open. But it was right close to where the sensor was. What if he was using the writing as a disguise? What if he really wanted was an opening he could get the sensor out of whenever he was ready? And when he got hurt by Irene, that sword – it hit right on top of that first wound, remember? It was deeper. He'd have a much easier time getting the sensor out of that than what he did for the writing. Molly, he knew you could fake your death by taking out your sensor before Jim showed us. How LONG do you think he knew that, I wonder!"

"John, the wolves," she says warningly.

"He went inside the cornucopia," I say. "That would bottleneck the wolves - you saw how narrow it gets, in the back! All they wanted to do was eat things, eat him, eat us… if he had nightlock berries with him…and he must have, Sherlock wouldn't have passed up an opportunity to stuff a bunch in his pockets after we pointed them out…and he had all of those weapons…If he smeared the nightlock on the weapons, or on other things, he could shield himself with..."

"JOHN," Molly says angrily. "He wouldn't be able to survive on his own, he's useless at it."

I look at the ground. But I can't stop. I have to keep telling her. "Irene brought him to us," I say. "Got us to take care of his burns. She's a survivor, she could have killed him when she found him, and then us when she found us, easily. But she was helping him. What logical reason could she possibly have had for doing that, if she wanted to survive by winning the Games! She had no kind of life to go back to, Molly, Sherlock told her he'd figured out she got money by, well, selling herself. I don't think Sherlock would go to her and ask to run away together, but I very much think Irene would ask Sherlock. When she ran off, she knew about the trick with the sensors too. We heard a cannon, but what if that was part of her plan? Convince everyone she'd died? She ran off with a backpack full of supplies, so she has that if she lived! For all we know, they both knew about the wolves, made plans, made preparations…"

"JOHN STOP IT!" Molly yells.

I jump. Then feel terrible.

"I'm sorry… I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to…"

"I caught a glimpse of Sherlock's face," Molly says in a low, cold voice. "Just as he left to run at Jim. He looked happy, really happy, for the first time I'd ever seen him. Not like he was happy to finally die and get it all over with. Like he finally wanted to live. John, I don't _know_ what happened, back there. But if Sherlock's alive, the most helpful thing we can do for him is NOT SAY ANYTHING ABOUT IT. Okay?"

I don't know what to say, but I nod. I have the strangest slight feeling, and I realize it's hope.

"Think he'll stop by?" I ask.

"Not having anyone to tell about his clever plan is bound to drive him mad sooner or later," Molly says slowly. "Well, there's Irene, but she wouldn't be impressed. Or she already knows. Or both."

I scratch my chin thoughtfully. "Oh, Irene. If he really did run off with her, they're going to find us later, and they'll be a family of six."

"Sherlock doesn't get those feelings," Molly says. "He told me when I was washing his clothes, that one time. He was very sweet, said that I shouldn't be hanging around him hoping for affections he's incapable of having."

"I'll have to try that sometime," I say, laughing. "No more awkward dates!"

"He was telling the truth,"Molly snaps. "And if he's not dead, I shouldn't even be telling you this."

"I'm sorry," I say.

It's a few hours later, and I'm in my room, and I'm writing about Sherlock. About the Games. I can't talk to Molly very much, but all of this happened, and it was all important… I have to tell someone, even no one at all. I can't forget. Even if all I do is write something and hide it where I can't get to it easily. It has to be preserved. I didn't stand up for us all at the end of the Games, I chose Molly's life instead, hers and mine. It's a choice I don't regret, but I can't make that right...all I can do is keep taking steps to try. I have to write. When I finish the account, I'll seal it up and hide it in the woods. All I did during the whole bloody thing was observe... the least I can do is preserve those observations. And if the Capitol wants me dead, I'm running out of time to make my record.

I start my draft with the phrase, "Sherlock Holmes is not dead."

I cross it out.

Then I write it again.

And go from there.


	12. Epilogue

_That account was not this account. But they are the same, in spirit, and that account did survive, to be rediscovered in happier times. Lifetimes later, it is considered the best documentation ever found of that tragic ritual of Panem, The Hunger Games. It is a curious document, to be sure, remarkable, and well known and well-loved by the public. It generated a lot of publicity when it was found, and even now the names John Watson, Molly Hooper, and Sherlock Holmes have bled into the culture, so that everyone knows them vaguely as historical figures. Even people who aren't very intrigued by history like to be intrigued._

_At the very end of the document, it was found, a message in someone else's handwriting, written in blood, reads:_

Don't write stories, John.


End file.
